The Narrative and Documentary Competition feature films for the 23rd annual New Orleans Film Festival were announced today by the New Orleans Film Society. The festival (October 11-18) chose their lineup from a record 1,250 submissions.

Of the fifteen competing feature films, ten are directed by women. All the films are having Louisiana premieres and winning filmmakers will get a $10,000 value camera package courtesy of Panavision.

A jury will determine each winner and the jury includes Michelle Satter (founder, Feature Film Program at the Sundance Institute), Neal Block (head of distribution, Magnolia Pictures), Tia Lessin (Academy Award-nominated director, "Trouble the Water"); Lois Vossen (founding and Emmy Award-winning series producer, "Independent Lens"); and Michael Lumpkin (executive director, International Documentary Association).

"Four"

Jolene Pinder, Executive Director of the New Orleans Film Society, expressed her excitement over this year's festival.

"We're incredibly excited about this year's competitive division lineup and believe it's one of the strongest programs in the Festival's history,” she said. "Our Festival has grown exponentially over the last three years. This year alone, we saw a 30% increase in submissions which made our task of selecting films more difficult than ever before."

Feature films that won't screen in competition, the short film lineup and the Louisiana film lineup will be announced later this month.

Advance tickets will be available for purchase October 1st for New Orleans Film Society members while tickets and passes will be available for the general public on October 8th. Society members also receive discounts on all festival events. If you're interested in joining, visit the film society's page here.

An official release of the narrative and documentary features in competition and their synopsis follows on the next page: